An optical disc is an example of an information recording medium having a sector structure. In recent years, optical discs have been developed so as to have a higher density and a larger capacity. In particular, the number of times data can be re-written in the same area tends to be reduced due to the increase of the density. When an optical disc where the number of re-writing data onto the same area is limited is used, it is necessary to avoid recording data repeatedly into a specific area of the optical disc. As one of the methods for avoiding recording data repeatedly, a one-way recording method (a circular recording method) has been proposed.
A data processing device for performing the circular recording method is known (See Reference 1). This data processing device records, onto a disc, an address indicating the position from which a search for an unassigned area is started, and searches for an unassigned area (a free space) in a direction from the position indicated by the address to the position corresponding to the larger addresses.
Reference 1: Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 4-120634